An ICE furlough due to a frozen budget might be soothing.
The federal government shutdown over the national budget happened this last week as promised and will probably continue to dominate every news cycle news for at least a week, different aspects of it for much longer as damage mounts.
There is indeed plenty to say about a government shutdown. For one thing, it makes many of us say things like “why is my clinic only open part-time?” or “hey, what happened to my kid’s pre-school’s funding?”
And the question you may ask, what happens with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during that time? Will the workforce be cut or furloughed? You are probably beginning to catch on to what they’re up to lately.
ICE was certainly on the job in Chicago , with at least a half a dozen masked guys chasing a guy on a delivery bicycle , who fairly swiftly gave the ICE men the slip. After that onerous and inglorious foot chase; ICE personnel might secretly wish for a temporary pause in that kind of regular breakneck and perilous action; maybe a furlough due to a frozen budget might be soothing.
But that is not to be. The vast majority are still on the ground, along with their steady government funding.
ICE issued a loud announcement with shouty capital letters in response to conjecture and rumors zipping around the internet: “DURING A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: There is NO CHANGE to U.S. immigration laws or border enforcement,” officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted on the social media X.
It goes on to explain that the plan of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, if there were to be a budget squeeze, would exempt 21,028 workers from furlough; (the number would 19,626 during a lapse in funding, according to the plan dated Sept. 27. Customs and Border Protection would retain 63,243 personnel of 67,792.
The kids were crying and one of the ICE agents said “F*** them kids.”
So it looks like it’s business as usual for the snatch and grab crew, shutdown or not. The migra got all showy in Chicago on September 30 when hundreds of ICE personnel rappelled out of Black Hawk helicopters to raid a South Shore apartment building in the middle of the night.
An MSN report describes the scene :“Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down doors, pulling men, women and children — some of them allegedly naked — from their apartments, residents and witnesses told the Chicago Sun-Times.”
Tenant Eboni Watson told ABC Eyewitness News that the agents threw flash bang grenades. The tenants were terrified. “The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other,” Watson said. ”
“That’s all I kept asking. ‘What is the morality? Where’s the human?’ One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, ‘f*** them kids.'”
The masked parachuters arrested 37 who lacked immigration status. Some of them have criminal records, which works very well with the Trump Administration obsession with Tren de Aragua, a criminal enterprise of Venezuelan origin that has moved into other countries as well. Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and El Salvador’s MS-13 round out the Administration’s list.
The Administration has bombed four Venezuelan vessels as yet, saying that it is protecting the United States from drugs. International experts note that the killing of alleged Tren de Aragua members could contravene international law on the use of force.
In Portland, a federal judge will rule Friday, October 3rd, on a petition from both the city and the state for an emergency court order to stop Trump’s troop deployment.
Meanwhile, Trump has said Chicago could be like Portland OR, where a federal judge will rule Friday, October 3rd, on a petition from both the city and the state for an emergency court order to stop Trump’s deployment and maybe flat-out block the 200 Oregon National Guard set to be deployed) or let them in, perhaps with restrictions. Another path could be figuring it out when they are actually deployed.
Latinopia will keep an eye out for any intel.
BTW, it looks like any city could be lucky enough to be occupied—it would probably have to have Democratic majority, it seems.
Going back to DHS and ICE’s budget –don’t tuck any cash in the holiday card you may plan to send their way. The total discretionary allocation for budget for fiscal year 2026 is $66.36 billion, with a chunk for funding the Federal Protective Service and, of course, detention facilities.
ICE’s proposed allocation gets a raise to $11.29 billion; on top of that the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill makes available some $75 billion up until September 30, 2029.
Reporter Rae Deng figured it out and did a great job of following the money on Snopes—take a peek.
The California legislature passed the “No Secret Police Act” which bans face coverings for law enforcement.
And this week California did a pretty good job, too, but on another front. The legislature passed the “No Secret Police Act” which bans face coverings for law enforcement. You can read the actual text here. It’s pretty specific: “…“facial covering” means any opaque mask, garment, helmet, headgear, or other item that conceals or obscures the facial identity of an individual, including, but not limited to, a balaclava, tactical mask, gator, ski mask, and any similar type of facial covering or face-shielding item.”
University of California, Davis law professor Raquel Uranga sees it as a way to draw the line for what states can and should outlaw—using an extreme example, she says, it’s not within the law for federal agents to torture or murder people in their custody. “At some point, the answer has to be ‘no,’” “I think this is what the state of California is trying to do. Establish limits as to how much the federal government can do within the jurisdiction of the state. It’s an issue of state sovereignty.”
The legislation kind of stomps on ICE’s favorite weapons—terror, the kind people feel when being attacked by perhaps several ICE personnel at a time, all with big panzas and no other discernible characteristics—(just writing what we see on TV here.) Anyway, no doubt the ICE operatives have other terrorizing methods up their sleeves, although banging on peoples’ front doors at 3AM, masked or not, seems pretty effective.
Other states—New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are considering similar legislation, as are some cities. San Jose, CA city council voted unanimously to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would make it unlawful for law enforcement officers to conceal their identities.
DHS has said it will refuse to comply. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told CBS News in an interview on September 22 that California has no jurisdiction to regulate the federal government.
That’s a see-you-in-court kind of retort but the White House gang is not kidding. They are fighting this for as long as the war on immigrants is alive and expanding.
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Copyright 2025 by Bobbi Murray. All images in this blog are in the public domain. No Secret Police Act image courtesy of Wikipedia.